IT affords me no ordinary gratification to be the humble instrument in
rendering these exquisitely obscure prose-poems--reeking as they
are with the self-consciousness of so magnificently triumphant
an Ego--into the English tongue, though I am fully aware of the
difficulty of preserving all the mystical unintelligibility of the
original.
DUNNO WÄHRIAR is perhaps the most remarkable personality that his
native Lapland has yet produced. He first saw the light on April 1,
1879, at Kandalax, so that he may still be called comparatively young.
His impressionable, sensitive soul broke out in early revolt against
the train-oil and tallow which formed the traditionary nutriment of
his family circle, and in 1883 we find him casting off the shackles
of conventionality and escaping to Sweden in his sledge-perambulator.
There he has lived ever since, and has already secured a foremost
place among the greatest physiological psychologists of Scandinavia.
As a morbid pathologist, he surpasses STRINDBERG; while in neurotic
sensitivism, he has hustled HANSSON into a back seat; easily
beaten BJÖRNSON in diagnosis of the elusive emotions; and taken the
indigestible cake of slack-baked symbolism from the master hand
of IBSEN himself! Small wonder, then, that the commonest penwiper
containing issues from his pen is eagerly sought after by admirers of
such effusions.
He belongs ('tis true) to the Literary Upper Crust, and is for the few
rather than the many; while so absolute has been his fidelity to the
principles of his art, that he has published every one of his works at
a considerable pecuniary loss.
Need I say more to ensure for him that respectful admiration which the
public is ever ready to lavish upon anything they fail to understand?
Let me rather efface myself and leave DUNNO WÄHRIAR--or "Young
GARNAWAY," as is his self-adopted pseudonym--to unfold the rhythmic
charm of his own inimitable incomprehensibility.
* * * * *